Race for First Photos.

EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA! shouted the newsboys for The Los Angeles "Evening Express" in the dawn hours of June 24th, 1926.  People grabbed The Extras out of their hands as fast as they could keep 'em comin'! The EXTRA was a result of Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson being found alive in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico early June 23rd.  When the Press Corps learned she was lying in a Calumet & Arizona Hospital bed in Douglas, Arizona, a media feeding frenzy broke loose.

The newspaper was boastfully proud of printing the first photos and even wrote a sidebar story about "a tale of newspapermen and their work in the raw." Here is the complete text of the story as transcribed from screen clips using OCR technology.

Express Wins Airplane Race for Aimee Photos

"Details of one of the most thrilling cases in which high-powered automobiles of the sheriff's office, as well as two airplanes, took part In an effort to obtain pictures and a complete story of Aimee Semple McPherson for the public of Los Angeles, were laid bare when the Evening Express scored the "scoop" of the year over all other Southern California papers and issued an extra containing the first photographs of the evangelist to be shown since her rescue.

READY FOR BATTLE

The story, which reads like a novel and is replete with thrills, is a tale of newspapermen and their work in the raw. One reporter traveling in an automobile close to 80 miles an hour, armed to the teeth, races another carload of photograph "hijackers" to a stranded plane in the Santa Suzanna pass while two others drop 2000 feet in another plane and narrowly escape serious injury. But the Evening Express is still the first and only paper to show the actual photographs of the famous evangelist lying on a bed of pain in a hospital 700 miles away.

Less than an hour yesterday morning after word was flashed here that Mrs. McPherson had been found, Harry E Meason, Express reporter, and Albert Schmidt, staff photographer, took off in a biplane and headed for Arizona, traveling at a speed of 100 miles an hour. While passing a range of mountains at an altitude of 4000 feet the plane engine developed trouble and began to "buck." A landing was made in the town of Imperial and the two men, together with their pilot, again took to the air.

NEARLY CRASH

The trio had climbed to an altitude of 2000 feet when the engine stopped dead. Barely grazing a telephone pole and several trees in their wild flight to earth, the three men escaped serious injury or death when the pilot, owing to his exceptional skill, managed to make a landing in a field below without turning his plane over.

There's no doubt that T. Claude Ryan flew to the rescue of the "Evening Express."  Ryan was something of a Southern California icon back in 1926.  He had established an exceptional reputation as a daring pilot.  But what's more is that he was an astute businessman and early aeronautical engineer.  He instinctively knew how to design a sweet aircraft that could fly and fly FAST!  So, the LA "Evening Express" called The Best Guy they could find and Claude fly to the rescue.  This is his Ryan M-1, an early monoplane powereed by a Wright Whirlwind radial engine that really cold do 185 mph!  The plane had only been flown for the first time a mere four months before The Great Photo Race to Douglas.  For Claude to fly this mission in the dark of night is a testimony to his skills as a pioneer pilot.  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_M-1

Word was then flashed to the Express office of the accident and the fact that the plane could not again take the air. From there another message was relayed to Claude Ryan, San Diego aviator, noted for his skill and daring in the air, and 10 minutes later he started out in his own monoplane for Douglas where, the Evening Express told him, were waiting pictures for the famous preacher. Flying at the fullest speed his wasplike machine was capable of, which is 185 miles an hour, Ryan reached his destination, and, despite the fact that the night was pitch dark, immediately took off.

THREATENED WITH DEATH

On his last stop for gas and oil Ryan was handed a telegram informing him that a car containing seven men had been sent out to the place where he was expected to land. Their object, he was informed, was to rob him of his pictures, even if they had to "knock him cold." The message ended with a warning to him to "come down" somewhere in the Santa Suzanna pass and he would be met by representatives of the Evening Express and several deputy sheriffs.

T. Claude Ryan

Then began a race from the Sheriff's office in the fastest available car Piloted by Jack Lane, the fastest driver connected with Sheriff Traeger's office, the machine contained Elmer Terrill, an Express reporter, and Deputy Sheriffs Charles Ellison and Charles Patton, both noted for their ability to either fight or shoot. Careening from side to side the big car's speedometer reached the 80-miles-an-hour point.

Terrill and his deputies met the plane and escorted Ryan to Los Angeles and the Express office. Despite assurances Ryan refused to part with his package of precious photographs until he came face to face with the city editor. Then, his eyes streaming water, caused by a leak in his goggles, the tired aviator completed his 24-hour job with a simple:
"Here's your pictures!"

When we saw the car used in the race did 80 MPH on East LA desert roads we knew it had to be a Studebaker Sheriff Big Six.    There was no other cop car that could do that in 1926.  We did a big article on The Sheriff and you can find it here:
https://azitwas.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-sheriff-arizona-big-six.html

POLICEMAN HERO

Even the police department, in its effort to give a hand to one of the biggest enterprises ever undertaken and won by a newspaper, assisted the Evening Express, when Officer Kimberly of University division willingly undertook the hard job of keeping in telephonic communications with the hurtling planes as they made their various stops for water, fuel and oil. It was largely through Kimberley's efforts that the Express was first notified that one of its airplanes had made a forced landing and was out of commission.

And that is the story of how the Evening Express was able to present to the Los Angeles reading public the first photographs of Aimee Semple McPherson to be taken following her thrilling rescue. And that, doubtless, is how the newspaper will always beat the field and be the first to give its readers what they want ahead of any paper in Southern California.